Vazquez skipped as Nova tabbed for Sunday

Fresh off of his strong start against the Blue Jays, Ivan Nova will take the ball against the White Sox on Sunday instead of Javier Vazquez. Joe Girardi said that Vazquez will be skipped this weekend but will be available out of the bullpen. After a strong May and June, Vazquez has struggled lately. He is 2-2 over his last seven starts but with a 6.69 ERA over 35 innings. He’s allowed 11 home runs over that span, and more alarming than the results have been his stuff. His fastballs were down to the mid-to-low 80s, and his breaking pitches had nothing on them.

Vazquez had complained about a dead arm period two weeks ago, and it seems as though the right-hander has yet to regain his arm strength. Nova’s presence allows the club to give Javy some extra rest in advance of a September stretch drive. The team has not yet announced the rotation beyond this weekend, and we don’t know for how long Javy’s rotation spot will remain in limbo. It sounds however as though Nova, barring a collapse, will remain a rotation option for the remainder of the season. After all, Phil Hughes‘ innings limit will come into play shortly as well.

Yea, why wouldn’t they do this? I guess they want Alby to put that IL single season saves record out of reach.

http://ballcraft.blogspot.com Zanath

I absolutely agree with this. It’s been pretty clear that Vazquez has had nothing in his last handful of starts, and Nova was pretty impressive last night. I think the rest will do Javy good, and hopefully he can regain some of the form that made him so good in May and June.

Ross in Jersey

Makes it seem like last night was an audition for Javy’s spot. They felt Nova did well enough that he’s a better option than Javy right now… which quite frankly is rather sad. I’m glad we didn’t really give up much to get Vazquez, because it seems like a pretty bad signing right now. He did carry the rotation for a couple months, so at least it wasn’t a total flop.

mikebk

didnt give up much for javy…signing? what are you talking about?

it was a trade in which we gave up arguably our best pitching prospect at the time in Viz, so while he was far away it was a very good piece we gave away.

http://www.secondavenuesagas.com Benjamin Kabak

He was 19, pitching at single A, and he’s been out for a while with a elbow injury. We didn’t really give up that much. I’d be reasonably surprised if Vizcaino reached his potential.

Ross in Jersey

Who ranked Vizcaino as the best pitching prospect in the Yankee system? That’s just making shit up.

That was a year ago. Where would Arodys Vizcaino rank today? Just like Javy, Viz is not who he was a year ago, but at least Javy gave us two solid months in the rotation to, well, ummmm, well what exactly would Arodys have contributed to the Yankees in 2010, or 11, or 12, or…? It was a great deal at the time. Unfortunately, Javy left three mph on his fastball somewhere in Atlanta. Meanwhile, Viz left his entire arm on the mound somewhere in Myrtle Beach. He’ll be back, but it’s a reminder of the fleeting nature of young pitchers. (Let’s all remember that with our stacked rotation down in AA. If one makes it as a starter, one in the bullpen and the others make good trade bait like Viz, consider ourselves way ahead of the game.)

As for the other pieces, we got Boone Logan who has been a positve with Marte gone, and we jettisoned the should-be 4th/5th OFer Melky Cabrera and his excessive 3.1 million contract (wow, really?!), who is once again OPS’ing along at his below-average 88 this year, and we eventually replace him with Austin Kearns, who is only making 750K and has an OPS+ of 120 (160 for the Yankees, although that won’t keep up).

http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa

Baseball America has him as the top pitching prospect in the system in this year’s Prospect Handbook, which went to press about a week before the trade.

Zack

Although he was only a 4-star prospect- well atleast before the trade

Chris

Amazingly, he became a 5 star prospect right after the trade.

All Praise Be To Mo

At least he’s not Casey Kelly 6 star level.

Cy Pettitte

we got Poon Logan in that deal with it so I’m fine with it

Cy Pettitte

*in that deal with him (Vazquez)

Carlosologist

The last time Javy was skipped he was the second best pitcher on the staff. Hopefully we get those same results in his next start.

http://mystiqueandaura.com Steve H

We don’t need another long-man out of the pen, and rosters can expand in a week if so. Why not just DL him and go with Alby as stated above?

For one inning of relief, right now, I have more confidence in Alphalebeto than I do in Javy, and I’m a Javy guy.

I’m guessing they’re going to give him extended rest, pitch him again on Monday or Tuesday of next week and see if it’s had any effect. If his velocity returns and he looks sharp, they reinsert him into the rotation. If not, he goes on the DL in time to make moves coinciding with the Sept 1st callups.

No, he’s saying that even with the skipped start, Javy’s slot in the rotation will still come up one more time before rosters expand, and if he’s still shitty in that start, we can and should DL him before rosters do expand to get one more pitcher playoff eligible (like Albaladejo).

Ross in Jersey

Yeah, I think they’re going to give Javy once more chance to show them something before they decide to DL him or not.

If there was a 10-day DL, we’d put Javy on it. Since there’s not, we have to keep him around. Losing him for 15 days, though, means skipping him twice minimum and locking in Nova and Moseley into rotation spots with no good option to fill in if one of them implodes and can’t be trusted to make a single additional start.

That’s too risky.

swo

They still need to preserve Phil’s arm. Better off keeping Vazquez around just in case, especially if Nova gets bombed in his next start.

BigBlueAL

Javy has become Moose at the end of the 2007 season.

M-Three

Last night I suggested this and all of you thought I was crazy. Now my idea is reality. I told this should happen and now I look very smart for first guessing this. I hope Andy comes back soon because I would love to go through September with a rotation of CC, Hughes, Andy, A.J., and Nova.

We didn’t think you were crazy because you said we should pitch Nova in Vazquez’s spot and skip him a turn.

We thought you were crazy because you said “Throw Vasquez in the pen to fill the role of being the ‘Oliver Perez reliever'” and “Vasquez is done as far as being a productive major league pitcher” and “He has no guts or heart and can’t get it done in the big spot” and “The only reason that Vasquez made the all-star that year is because Joe Torre was managing the A.L. team”.

It’s all those crazy things you said that made people say you were crazy, not that one single non-crazy thing you said that the Yankees are actually doing now.

http://youcantpredictbaseball.wordpress.com/ bexarama

Thank you, sir.

Fred Lemond

You said he was going to be DFA’d. It was pretty damn obvious Nova was going to take Javy’s spot in the rotation.

Scout

It’s really tiresome to say “I told you so” on a blog. Really. No one cares.

CS Yankee

At least they got half of it right in getting Super-Nova the bump on Sunday.

I wish they would send Javy to the DL and get him some rest/treatment. Perhaps with the other seasons (MiLB) winding down and thinking if Nova lays an egg Sunday he can reenter Javy into the rotation.

The only other thing is that maybe they are protecting (respectfully speaking) Javy as a veteran and hope that he gets on the right page in case they have other issues with injuries to the staters.

Doug

“It sounds however as though Nova, barring a collapse, will remain a rotation option for the remainder of the season. After all, Phil Hughes’ innings limit will come into play shortly as well.”

But as Mike alluded to in his post earlier today, Nova’s gonna run into an innings limit as well after another 5 starts or so. Guess you just cross that bridge when you get there. Hopefully by then we’ll have clinched and we can have Igawa start in his stead.

mustang

“an innings limit”

I’m really tired of hearing these words.

Doug

maybe so, but they exist

mustang

Yes but why?
Have pitching arm injuries gone down?

I don’t know but sometimes I think people really over analyze this game.

mustang

Cool!

Love to see the kid get another start really enjoyed his outing last night.

Chris

This just occurred to me. You know who Javy reminds me of this year? Mussina in 2008. He finally lost his fastball and hadn’t started to ‘pitch backwards’ yet and lead with his off speed stuff. I hope Javy get’s it figured out for the stretch run and playoffs and has a nice bounce-back year next year (obviously it won’t be with the Yankees).

Anyway, I agree about all of this. I like Javy. I was pretty shocked when someone – was it Bret? – said he was really overrated. I think he’s been pretty underrated. He’s not a HOFer at all or even close, but he’s had a really solid, healthy career and he’s struck out like a mrazillion guys. That’s a lot more than most pitchers. I hope he gets everything working in September, but he’s been a disappointment. What can you do?

Chris

Yes I meant 2007. It seems like it was just yesterday…

And no, I didn’t read BigBlueAL’s post.

JT

Just realized Javy has a war of -0.1 on the season

Klemy

I love this move. Give Javy some time to rest up, because if he’s going to be worth anything to the team in the psotseasoon, he may very well need this.